Steve Jobs, IT Giant, Dies at 56

Apple's co-founder, who had been in failing health since being diagnosed with cancer eight years ago, stepped down as CEO on Aug. 24.

Apple co-founder and two-time CEO Steve Jobs, recognized around the world as one of the most successful innovators in the history of American business, died Oct. 5 as the result of an eight-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 56.
Ironically, Jobs passed away less than 24 hours after the announcement of yet another new Apple product, the iPhone 4S. He is survived by his wife, Laurene, and three grown children.

Jobs and partner Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1977 and in the span of one generation changed the way the world uses personal information. He was a famous micro-manager with big ideas that resonated around the world and back millions of times.

Jobs was involved in every aspect of all of Apple's products, from early development to finishing touches. His personality permeated every part of Apple.

In almost an homage to Jobs' ability and dedication, Apple was recently recognized as the most valuable IT company and the second most valuable company in the world at $351 billion, ranking over GE, Microsoft, IBM and Hewlett-Packard and trailing only Exxon Mobile.

Jobs had left Apple for 11 years (from 1985 to 1996) after being fired by his own board of directors following a long internal battle. In the interim, he learned more about how to be a CEO and went on to work on other projects, including NeXT Computer and Pixar Animation Studios.

By the time he returned in 1996, Apple was nearly bankrupt. Sun Microsystems, now absorbed by Oracle but then in its heyday, was very close to announcing the purchase of the company, but legal red tape held up the deal and it was never consummated. (For more detail on this, read the Feb. 25, 2011 eWEEK article "How Apple Dodged a Sun Buyout: Former Execs McNealy, Zander Tell All.")

Over the next 15 years, Jobs then led the company out of the wilderness with the iMac, followed by the iPod, iPod Touch, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad. The rest is business and cultural history.

Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011. Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance. His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source. Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005. In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University. He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983. He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl. A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work. He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz